Pine Bluff police chief candidate Robert Jones fielded questions ranging from engagement with the community to racial demographics for 40 minutes on the Pine Bluff Convention Center auditorium stage Monday evening.
The public forum was the last phase of Jones' in-person interviews for the position held by the retiring Kelvin Sergeant. Former assistant to the mayor Keidra Burrell moderated the event and read one question at a time from index cards submitted by attendees to Jones.
Jones is approaching his second anniversary as chief of the Kingsland, Ga., Police Department and brought one of his lieutenants, Paul George, with him to check out Pine Bluff. But Jones told the crowd of about 50 he has no plans to bring a second-in-command with him, should he be hired.
"I hope to be here for a while, and I'll be here as long as you want me to be here," Jones said. "I have a great job now. ... I'm not running from anything. I'm here because I feel like I've been called to come here and stand here before you today."
Jones, who is white, faced questions about serving a city whose African American population accounts for almost 77% of the racial makeup. When pressed for his definition of "Black Lives Matter," Jones described the organization that has led a movement rather than the movement itself.
"It's an organization looking to make the U.S. aware of the violence that occurs from police abuse against African Americans," he said. "It's many things to other people, but that's what it is to me."
He said Kingsland, a short drive north of Jacksonville, Fla., has a racial makeup of 72% white, 13% Black and 15% other races. The percentage of African Americans serving in the Kingsland Police Department is about 20%, he estimated.
"When you start looking at the demographics of a department, you want to make sure the demographics of a department match the demographics of a city," Jones said, responding to a question about how many officers in Kingsland are African American. "The better question probably would be, do the demographics represent the demographics in my community, and I would say yes, they do."
An attendee asked Jones how he would attract more officers to the Pine Bluff Police Department, which has 102 officers and needs 35 more to be fully staffed. Jones relied on his experience of bolstering Kingsland's staff from 26 officers to 44.
Were it not for some terminations due to ethics violations, the Kingsland force would be fully staffed, Jones said.
Jones said he has fired some officers for corruption or excessive use of force and responded to the second part of a question that addressed morale.
"By building morale, hopefully, the people around a good police officer would see that if we keep doing what we're supposed to do, there's a good ethical career here and that would bring morale up."
Mayor Shirley Washington sat at a desk on stage as Jones answered questions. After he finished, she thanked those who showed up for the event and said that if Jones is not hired, the search committee would start a new round of looking for a chief, adding that the committee will meet later this week and will soon make a decision about whether to offer the job to Jones.
Jones has also applied for the chief's job in Austin, Texas, but said that if he was offered that job, he would come to Pine Bluff. He meets with business leaders this morning at Simmons Bank.